Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos

I’m not surprised that Sue Monk Kidd wrote an endorsement for this book. The Secret Life of Bees has a similar mystical quality and a requirement that you stretch your imagination, not unlike John Irving’s The World According to Garp. It’s a debut novel. I realize that I have read several debut novels lately that I have enjoyed, The Secret Life of Bees being one of them. And come to think of it, To Kill a Mockingbird was a debut novel. Anyway, I’ve cobbled together a description from the publisher’s blub:

With a riotous energy that recalls the works of John Irving and Anne Tyler, Broken for You is a debut novel of infinite charm and tremendous heart that explores the risks and rewards of human connection, and the hidden strength behind things that only seem fragile. When elderly Margaret Hughes discovers that she has a malignant brain tumor, she refuses treatment and decides to take a nice young tenant into her huge, lonely Seattle mansion for company. What she gets is Wanda Schultz, a tough-as-nails stage manager who is secretly seeking the man who left her and prone to inexplicable weeping breakdowns. Both women are guarding dark secrets and have spent many years building up protective armor against the outside world. But as the two begin their tentative dance of friendship, the armor begins to fall away. Wrestling to keep the dead and the ghosts of their pasts at bay, the two women slowly build an extraordinary friendship, and when Wanda discovers a talent for mosaics, the past begins to quiet